Those who know me well know I love to read. I’ll finish a novel and immediately move on to the next one. Books are a large part of my life, and I enjoy trying to find the greater meaning behind them. Recently, I stumbled upon two books that really resonated with me: The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, and The Great Good Thing, by Andrew Klavan. I read them one after another, which is amazing, because, unbeknownst to me, they were very similar stories.
The Alchemist follows the journey of a young shepherd boy trying to find his Personal Legend, or his life’s meaning. The book starts off with the boy having a recurring dream. He travels to a town, where he meets a gypsy, who he believes can help him come to a better understanding of what the dream means. The dream, however, is deemed to be too complicated to interpret, and he is sent off without a full understanding of what it meant. Around this time, he begins to doubt that he has a true purpose in life. He is comfortable with his life as a shepherd, and decides he will keep things that way. The boy then meets an old, wise, man, whom, through the usage of metaphors and parables, convinces him to follow through with the journey to discover his Personal Legend. The journey is full of many trials and challenges, many instances of doubt, and many lessons along the way. The boy often considers giving up; most of this is due to hardships he faces, ultimately discouraging him from continuing on to find his treasure. He meets many people along the way, however, that help to prod him along. After everything the boy experiences, he finally prevails; he succeeds in his pursuit to discover his personal legend.
After finishing this book, I considered the relevance of the tale to my own life. I found that it was extremely relevant to my current stage of life. It helped me in the process of deciding for sure that I would go on the Race, rather than go on to college, like many of my friends; skipping this opportunity would be something I would regret for a long time. Having drawn everything I believed I could from this book, I set it down and moved on to the next novel, The Great Good Thing.
The Great Good Thing is Andrew Klavan’s personal memoir regarding his path to find God. Andrew Klavan was born in a religious household, but never truly adopted the beliefs his family held. In fact, he did not necessarily believe in God at all; he lived as an atheist for a large part of his life. Due to his ideological differences, his father treated him with hostility, resulting in a rather rough childhood. The rough childhood carried over to his adult life, causing him to isolate himself from the rest of society. He was an aspiring writer, but never found any success with any of his books. Eventually, Andrew fell into a deep depression, so much so that he even considered suicide. After prodding from his wife, he started going to therapy to get help with his problem. Over the multi-year process of therapy, Andrew had five epiphanies, all bringing him to the realization that there has to be a greater being in the universe; there has to be a God. After years of ignoring the insistent call of God, Andrew Klavan was baptized; he had finally found, and come to terms with, “the Great Good Thing.”
The fact that I somehow managed to pair these books is amazing, almost as if it were divine intervention. God intended for me to draw parallels between the two stories in order to gain an even greater message from them. The parallels did not appear immediately, as The Alchemist had not been much of a thought by the time I finished Andrew Klavan’s novel. However it came around again, this time in English class, resulting in me reaching a greater understanding of the books.
The books are tied together by one simple thing: they are both journeys. One is a journey to find one’s purpose, and the other is a spiritual journey, a journey to find God through darkness. While The Alchemist does not directly address faith, it could most certainly illustrate the way our faith should be practiced.
Reading The Great Good Thing allowed me to realize that The Alchemist could be interpreted as a lesson on faith. Faith is a journey. It is not a singular thing, a habit or custom, or even an end goal. Our faith is defined by the journey we, as followers of Christ, go on to find the greater meaning of the Gospel, and a greater understanding of the Lord. All of our journeys are vastly different. We interpret God in different ways. Faith can sometimes be easy; as good things happen in life, it is easy to praise God. But faith can also be difficult; when bad things happen, it is easy to question why God would let this happen. “If he was truly compassionate, humane, and merciful, this would never have happened to me!” But to experience true enlightenment, we need to be able to celebrate the Lord equally in both our defeats and our victories; push forward when things get tough, as God will truly make things better. And sometimes it just becomes all too convenient to remain where we are on the journey, as if we have come to the fullest understanding we can. We have to understand that understanding God in his fullness is impossible; God is infinitely beyond our understanding. It is the lifelong journey to find God, and grow closer to him that is truly important.
As we enter into this season of Lent, this great journey to new life, let us push forward in our own, personal, faith journeys to come to an even closer relationship with God.
